


shine bright like diamonds

by sunsetsandsmokebombs



Series: Harlivy Week!! [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman: The Animated Series
Genre: F/F, brief mentions of abuse, letter writing, other sweetness, them, we hate the joker in this house
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:48:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25836769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsetsandsmokebombs/pseuds/sunsetsandsmokebombs
Summary: Harley has trouble with goodbyes.
Relationships: Pamela Isley/Harleen Quinzel
Series: Harlivy Week!! [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1874731
Comments: 1
Kudos: 50





	shine bright like diamonds

_Dear, Red._

There was something so lovely about diamonds, Harley thought.

She wasn't entirely sure _why_ she adored them. Of course, there was the way they sparkled and shined, how they made her feel pretty, the way the design of them popped on her uniform.

_Hi! It's Harley! I'll probably write that at the end, too. Y'know, when it's all "Sincerely," or "Love, blank", because that's how most letters work._

There was something about the shape of a diamond, specifically, that was so compelling to her. Sharp, jagged at the edges. Looking like it had been removed from a larger whole, kinda like the sticker you pull from a paper wrap.

Oh, and they were valuable! They were so valuable. Harley liked to think that she and diamonds were like twins, in that sense. It's why she liked them so much.

_But I wanted to let you know from the tippity top, too! I don't want you getting sick thinking that any intruder wrote this! Though you're so smart you can probably just tell it's me by my handwriting!_

She liked thinking about diamonds when she was doing hard, emotional stuff. It made it easier.

_So, anyways, I'm sorry, Red. I can't be here. I can't stay with you._

Harley knew she was doing the right thing. She wouldn't be able to live with herself if she continued her stay at the greenhouse. Mistah J must be worried SICK, and the more she made him wait and worry, the more angry he'd be with her when she got back.

_You're so sweet to me, and sometimes I can't understand why. But I just want you to know that I love you for it, and that this choice isn't easy for me._

Harley gritted her teeth as doubts tried to creep into her mind. She scribbled harder with her pen, the grating noises it made snapping her mind to the bleak gray walls of her Arkham cell. She liked to stare at them as her psychiatrist scribbled and clicked away at her notes during the sessions. Harley could never see Dr. Ziegler's notes, but she could guess what was on them. Histrionic Personality Disorder, Co-Dependency issues, some stockholm, anti-social tendencies, the works. Harley would tug on her ponytails as hard as she could, hoping for some sense of pain to cancel out the annoying fucking clicking sound. "Yer gahbage at ya job, Angela. Can I break for lunch, **please**?" she would beg. To see that she was replaced with these hacks was sort of offensive.

That was the problem with it all, Harley realized, a tear staining the piece of paper she wrote on. Most of these people just think they know everything, and that they're so much better than her. They don't, and they aren't. And the _pity_. The pity would drive her cuckoo bananas. Like she didn't have enough of that on her plate already. The way the noses of all her old co-workers seemed to simultaneously scrunch up in disgust as she was dragged down the Arkham corridor for the hundredth time. Even Bats and his sidekick would cast sad looks after they were done kicking her butt. At least the cops would just slap the cuffs on, call her The Mean Names and be done with it. Wasn't so patronizing.

Not that she didn't appreciate the attention, and the seeming care. She just didn't love the flavor of it.

_Every day I've been here has hurt, not because I don't enjoy the time we spend together, but because I feel like I'm wasting your time. I don't wanna be a drag. Some things are too good to be true and I don't wanna keep playing fairy tale._

_Fairy tales_ , Harley thought. Did _The Little Mermaid_ count? She liked _The Little Mermaid_. Happy endings and what not. But those were the movies. Real relationships aren't all rainbows and roses. She figured that growing up with her parents. _Pops was a crook for cryin' out loud!_ It wasn't like her relationship with Mistah J was out of the ordinary. _He makes me feel happy_ , Harley reminded herself, as she often does. Love is fleeting, usually fake — but if she knew one thing, it's that Mistah J's love for her was real. She couldn't throw that away. She owed it to him, and to everyone in the world who wasn't so lucky. Only a couple handfuls of people in the history of this great big earth had known REAL love, she figured, the kind that's true and unbreakable. To walk away from something so special and rare, well it could only mean she was the most spoiled, wasteful, idiotic gal in Gotham.

Love means forgetting the frustrations and hurt that you might feel, because you know that the good times are worth it. That's real love.

Wasn't it?

_I will still be thinking about you every day. Probably all the time. I'm gonna pretend like you're thinking of me, too. But I don't think I want you to. Because you don't deserve that hurt._

_And_ I _do?_ Harley wondered. To deserve hurt. What a concept. Harley had trouble differentiating what was deemed socially acceptable and what just _was_ after she got entangled with Mistah J. The concepts of life and love that he'd hammered into her. Literally.

Harley's hand began to tremble, slightly. Feelings of indecisiveness were back and creeping in. She dropped the pen and rubbed her eyes, which were stinging with tears again. Usually when she cried there would be mascara running or her face makeup would get all messy. It hit her that she hadn't worn her makeup in days. Where'd she leave it?! What was she turning into?!

She sighed. Mistah J _never_ takes off his makeup. She actually doesn't know what he looks like without it. Is that makeup even? Or is he just naturally that way?

For the first time, Ivy takes full control of her thoughts. She'd been trying to think of other things while she wrote mindlessly, but the floodgates broke open. Why does she know more about Ivy than her future husband? Why does leaving Ivy hurt more than ditching him? _Why does... **focus**._ She picked the pen back up.

_Instead, please just think of rainforests and redwoods. And don't think of forest fires! I probably don't even have to ask that._

Harley giggled out loud at that, using humor to fight back some tears. The laughter comes with a stabbing pain in the kidney. That _definitely_ still hurts.

Mistah J was rough. He hit hard. As much as she hated when he got _that_ angry, she always got by because she thought of the bright side: _Ivy will take care of me_. Harley could patch herself up if she wanted to, mostly, but there was something about the tenderness of Ivy's nurturing that was like ecstasy. She couldn't imagine healing in any other fashion. Limping to her doorstep, calling her name, Ivy never failing to answer. She was so careful, and warm, and caring, unlike anyone she'd ever really known.

_The world needs you, in ways all these other dummies don't even understand. I’m excited to see you follow your dreams, and I'm gonna be rooting for ya._

Harley took a deep breath. She sensed that some part of her was stalling. Her bag is packed, she's dressed, all she needs to do is finish the note and _leave_. But she was taking every last precious second with it, delicately writing each of the letters with all the care she could muster.

_Well, I guess this is goodbye. Take care, Red. It may not seem like it, but I love you so, so, sooooo much. Thank you for making me feel things again._

Harley wanted to break the pen and rip up the paper. Every part of her body was telling her to stay. It made so much sense. She was happier, healthier. She smiled so much with Ivy — _real_ smiles. There was nothing better than the safety she felt with Ivy. But safety just made her feel guilty, and she couldn't really describe why. Not in any way that made sense. And it sickened her that she couldn't find it in her to stay. Ivy, the woman that tried to fix her, make her feel like she mattered and deserved love. Whole.

But she can't be whole again, it doesn't work like that. Harley Quinn is brokenness. She is shattered and incomplete. Unfixable. Her wounds can't be mended, not with a heart that's been ripped up and stitched back together a dozen times over. The heart that oozes the same blood that is stuck to her hands. She did this, she's responsible for what she is. She doesn't deserve fixing. She's always going to be jagged and sharp-edged, like those fucking diamonds. Scars never go away.

Her hand trembles again as she writes the close.

_Sincerely, Regards, with all the love and affection you can imagine, your favorite person, Sinc_

"Harley."

"SPAHSHSJA ZWHA?" Harley's pen goes flying as her arms instinctually swing upwards to protect her face. One eye opens, peering through her forearm guard to see that she's got nothing to worry about.

Well, actually, that's not true. This is not how her morning was supposed to go at all.

"H-hey, Red!" Harley raises a hand and lets her fingers dance in an innocent wave motion. "Morning! God, ya terrified me!" She puts on the only fake smile she's ever worn around her beloved elemental goddess friend.

Ivy took a couple steps down the stairs. She tilted her head, hair a cherry-red cascade over her shoulder, pupils dancing around her eyes as they studied Harley's body language and the objects around her. "Going somewhere, Harls?"

If Harley wasn't so nervous she would definitely be feeling the funny things right about now.

"Um, yeah!" She crumpled up her letter and slipped it into her bag. _So much for that whole thing_. "I'm gonna go grocery shoppin'!" The note was so she didn't have to deal with this. Of course that plan got ruined. Her plans always do. Regardless, she _certainly_ isn't telling Ivy any of this to her face.

"What's with the note, love?"

"Ah, you know me. I gotta write the stuff down. Milk, eggs, fertilizah. Some special meat fer the hyenas. Otherwise I fahget all about it!" Harley could feel sweat beads forming. She was glad her face paint wasn't on.

"Mmhmm," Ivy murmured, clearly seeing right through Harley's demeanor. "We don't have any of those things, love. Not even a fridge. You going to tell me what's up?"

Harley smacked her forehead immediately. What a _stupid_ excuse that was. "Well, good point. Truth is, Red, I didn't wanna wake ya. You like ya beauty sleep. So I was gonna leave a note on the door!" Harley nodded furiously, every word she said making perfect sense and being totally cool. "I'm gonna be gone. For like, jesta day or two. Needa take care of some minor personal things. By myself."

Ivy stood still, eyes still searching Harley and her surroundings, perfectly content with letting her fidget and panic under her gaze. Harley wasn't expecting any of this at all. "Uhh, earth ta Red? Are ya in there, doll? I'm talking to ya!" Harley forced a painfully fake giggle as she closed the distance between them. Ivy still wasn't giving her much. She delicately grabbed Ivy's hand, giving her a reassuring squeeze. "I'm gonna be okay, Red. Promise."

"I know you will," Ivy looked directly into Harley's eyes. "So stay."

Harley's grip on Ivy's arm suddenly got tighter. "Red."

"Harley... stay with me." Ivy's voice seemed to cocoon Harley in warmth. It was so commanding, but soothing, strong but soft. She trusted it, like everything else about Ivy.

"Red..." Harley's lips began to quiver.

" _I love you_ , Harley. _Stay_."

Harley embraced Ivy in a bear hug immediately. She sunk to her knees, Ivy following her to the floor, as Harley started to sob. "I wasn't gonna leave, Red! I didn't mean it! I swear!"

"I know, Honey," Ivy cooed, her arm wrapped around the jester's back affectionately, feeling her body shake as she let out hard cries into Ivy's shoulder.

"I want ya to trust me Red. It means s-so much to me! The way you make me feel like I won the lotto, ya know? I-" Harley sniffled, taking deep breaths, barely able to speak.

"It's okay, love. It's okay. You're here with me now. I got you."

_I got you._

Harley buried her face into Ivy as she wrestled with the weight of that. Love with Ivy _was_ like the movies. And it was real. Actually real. Maybe true love was having a bond strong enough to weather the storms of those bad times instead of just ignoring them. Scars might not go away, but they do fade — and when Harley was with Ivy, it's like she didn't notice them at all. She forgot her wounds entirely.

She realized, in Ivy's arms, that she didn't need to be whole to be loved by her. At least, not in the ways the doctors who snickered at her would prefer her to be. Not in the way the pity-showing goody two-shoes wanted her to be. Harleen was dead. And that was okay. Ivy was helping Harley be the fullest, best Harley — and the best Harley was worth it.

With their arms wrapped around each other, Harley's crying coming to a stop, and Ivy's whispers of reassurance the only sound in the room, Harley thinks that maybe this could work. She had every reason to believe that. Ivy's the one thing in this world that makes her think that one day, it would all be okay. That love could be... more.

She's like a fairy tale come to life.

And if Ivy could convince Harley to believe in fairy tales, then maybe she could convince Harley to stay.


End file.
